GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

[SomersetBrie]

There is lots of chat about review of marking on the GCSEs threads but I am interested specifically in anyone who is reviewing English (Lang or Lit) and whether the review provides an increase in grade.
DS, predicted a 7, got a 6 in both. He is not very close to the grade boundary (4 marks away) but the difference in marks between Paper 1 and Paper 2 have encouraged me to request access to the papers and see if it's worth a review.

Is anyone else asking for a review? I am curious to know how many marks people go up/down and if it results in a change of grade for many people.
(DS does not need a 7 but he was expecting a 7 out of 1 or other at least.)
This is AQA.

Yes we got English Language reviewed. 2 marks off the next grade boundary. Found out today that there was no change to grade and no extra marks.

Thats interesting, we didn't pay upfront but school told us we could get an invoice if there was no grade change

Thamks @ThatsCute @MrsHamlet
Sorry it didn't change @Chilliandbanana but at least you know it was checked over and you did what you could.

Our school put the exam re-mark fees for the different exam boards on ParentPay. You had to order what you wanted and fill in the consent form before they would submit. Perhaps our school doesn’t want to chase parents (specifically leavers) for money due.

Thanks @MrsHamlet that's sort of what I thought.

Our school required payment upfront - even to request the papers it was a tenner!

We did, for geography- 1 mark off and English Language- 2 marks off. DD 6th form place depended on a higher grade.

She went up in geography but not English.

I am amazed by how many people proceed with reviews and risk the grade going down.

We must be very risk averse it has made us pause even though we think something is amiss.

Even if a teacher reviews first and recommends you go ahead?

Teacher has reviewed DS’s Literature paper and says there was one question he didn’t answer properly. Could risk a review as she says he was marked fairly harshly but decided not worth it and more important that he accepts that sometimes it doesn’t go your way. I would have only gone for review if there had been genuine admin error.

on his language, he’s only one mark off so she thinks it might be worth a try but we are still undecided.

Hi everyone! I've been lurking on this thread since the exam results came out- DD missed a grade 4 in her AQA English Language by three marks and I found it a comfort that people were in a similar position- although obviously sorry that they were at the same time!
We put in for review as we felt she had nothing to lose, having already been declined for her choice of course at college. We got her review result back yesterday and she gained the three marks, although she still can't understand what went wrong as she was predicted a 6! But anyway, no dreaded re-sits!
Good luck to everyone waiting for their review outcomes and thanks for your company!

The statistics provided enough info for us make that calculated risk.

In 2023 only 0.1% of grades went down - that was 180 out of about 94,000 reviews. So that risk is really very very small - compared with the 21% that went up. Then when you look closer at the data you can see that about 8000 reviews led to a loss of more than 5 marks (about 2%). So, this told me that the risk of losing that many marks is a bit higher than the risk of the grade going down, but it is still pretty low; therefore, you need to be strategic - if you are far enough above the lower grade boundary then you could cushion a loss of 5+ marks then you are keeping the risk of a lowered grade as close to that 0.1% as possible.

Then we added in knowledge about our child - was the grade expected in that subject or did he do particularly well/poorly - and some teacher advice - did they think the grade was out of kilter or which paper might get an extra mark or two etc.

This led us to put in 5 reviews, including both English language and literature. In both cases for English he was 1-3 marks off the higher grade and around 8-10 marks above the lower boundary. The teachers didn’t review the papers but he said the exams had gone well and the teachers knew his level of work. So, we felt we had minimised the risk of falling into that 0.1% as much as possible. We got a 10 mark increase for literature and a 5 mark increase for language, going up to a 9 and 7 respectively. We also had success with another review (comp sci) and no change in the two others.

But we decided against a review for the other subject that was a possibility - history - he was a bit too far from the higher grade boundary and a bit too close to the lower grade boundary to take what was still a small risk. Also, we all knew that an 8 was really good for him for history as he had struggled with the amount of content and so it was just best to sit tight with that one!

@trampoline I guess a teacher's recommendation would give me the confidence to proceed but I'd still feel jittery.

We did because DC’s 6th form entry required a 6 in English Lit. DC was 3 marks off the grade. We weighed the risk, and took a chance because they would have to reduce marks by 13 to drop to a grade below. It worked in our favour and DC got the place in 6th form.

For anyone following Mr Salles Teaches English on YouTube (the teacher who sat the Eng Lang AQA exam this year to see if he could prove his theory, which is that the AQA exam is flawed) - he finally posted his result yesterday.
He got an 8 - and had it remarked and it's gone up to a 9. He quotes some interesting stats about the % of English remarking grade changes (not sure if they are accurate). He's a fan of Edexcel which he sat last year.
(1186) Mr Salles Teaches English - YouTube

@mojobrojo apologies you may well have stated this upthread but for Lit and Language did you put in both papers or just one per subject?
DCs teacher has recommended we definitely put in one Language as the marking is particularly low on one question. The marking on the other paper and on Lit papers seems ungenerous to me but not entirely unjustifiable. It would require an examiner to made a different judgment call on the quality of DCs work and it seems they normally go with the status quo!
Such a stressful system.

We were iGCSE with a coursework component so only had one paper to review in each case. But for the other subjects we had reviewed we did have this choice and we were advised by the school to do one at a time - they said that they had been previous cases where the student got the extra marks needed on one paper but then had them taken away on the other, so go with the one you think you're most likely to gain marks from first.

@TheSoupDragon70 wonderful news! Well done to your DD.

@mojobrojo thanks for spelling out your scientific approach. I have also looked at the grade boundaries and the scripts/marking and concluded that the risk of the grade going down is minimal. It would be bizarre for my DC to lose marks as they have not been generously marked. However, I still feel a ball of fear in my stomach and suspect it will remain until after the review is back and we haven't even submitted it yet!!

I won't say that I didn't have that little worry in the pit of my stomach too. But, I knew the stats so I could counteract that worry with my knowledge of the data. We did literature first actually - because it was only one mark off the higher grade boundary and really was a long way over the lower grade boundary. When that came back with a 10 mark increase it gave me more confidence to also put in language, which was 2 marks off the higher grade boundary.

@Examinetheexams we had our refund through—both papers have been refunded, even though there was only movement on one.

Thanks for letting me know @ThatsCute.

It really makes me cross that cost may be a preventative barrier for people who can’t afford to play the review lottery! I know they don’t want to get inundated but they should have better checking / quality control of marking systems in the first place.

@ThatsCute that’s really helpful to know. We’ve just had it suggested to submit both biology papers, and I was wondering what got refunded if the grade went up but only one paper changed marks

The full refund was on AQA.

Thank you, his is AQA too.

Great News!!